


Head In Hand

by pineconesandseafoam



Category: The Beatles (Band)
Genre: 1980s, Alternate Universe, But it's sweet, Fluff, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, John Lennon Lives, M/M, but like barely, it's not overly fluffy tbh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-09
Updated: 2019-09-09
Packaged: 2020-10-13 03:55:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20576039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pineconesandseafoam/pseuds/pineconesandseafoam
Summary: In the few moments (thirty seconds, maybe a minute) he’s been outside, he’s been absolutely drenched. His hair is plastered to his forehead, his glasses so coated with droplets that it would be a wonder if he could see out of them. His clothes hang off him limply, and rivulets of rain run down his temple.“John?”Paul gets an unexpected visitor.





	Head In Hand

The rain is falling.

It has been one year and two days since his marriage ended (amicably, mind you; he and Linda still loved each other, just...not in the way they both wanted to) and it is raining. Droplets streak down the window, smudging the outside world just slightly beyond his reach. The glass fogs with the breathing of both him and the panting sheepdog by his feet, and he is reminded of drawing figures in the glass with Mike, back in Liverpool.

Oh, to be young again. To draw faces in steamed glass and to laugh and run through the fields and have grass-stained trousers. To be free, without rules or constraints or responsibilities. Perhaps the glasses he’s looking through have a rosy tint to them, but childhood always seemed shrouded in magical, nostalgic ease. Ease of life, ease of family. Ease of relationships. 

Paul takes another sip of his drink (a whisky, two fingers for a day like today, where he feels restless and useless and just wishes the kids were his now and not in a week or two, _ god _ how he misses them) and continues to watch the grey world outside, with Martha sleeping on his feet and a fire crackling in the fireplace.

Headlights flash down the driveway, illuminating the night and pulling him out of his trance, and he jolts to his feet. With a whine, Martha sits up. Paul reaches over and scratches behind her ear in apology, and she lets out a quiet huff of satisfaction and noses at his hand. 

“Alright, girl, hello,” he laughs. He’s distracted for a moment by his dog, until a frantic knock comes at the door, and he’s reminded of the mysterious visitor. 

He doubts it could be any of his neighbours—truth be told, he hadn’t bothered to talk to any of them much. He's visited a few of the farms for eggs, vegetables, that sort of thing, but he’s not actually sat down and spoken with them, made a connection. He makes a mental note to get on that as he heads towards the door. 

Linda wouldn’t be bringing the kids over yet—he was pretty sure that was next Thursday, or maybe the Tuesday after, and maybe he should check the calendar and hope he wrote it down. It would be mortifying to have to call Linda, and he really _ does _ want to see them; he was just never all that good with dates.

The knock sounds once more as he’s in the midst of swinging open the door, and he’s greeted by a sopping John Lennon, face close to Paul’s and fist even closer. John immediately pulls his hand away. 

In the few moments (thirty seconds, maybe a minute) he’s been outside, he’s been absolutely drenched. His hair is plastered to his forehead, his glasses so coated with droplets that it would be a wonder if he could see out of them. His clothes hang off him limply, and rivulets of rain run down his temple. 

“John?”

“Paul,” John replies, voice just loud enough that Paul could hear him over the pounding of rain along the roof, atop the ground. Paul is too stunned to do anything more than step aside to allow John to enter. 

John toes off his shoes and stands in the doorway for a few seconds, dripping water onto the floor. Paul shakes himself out of his reverie. “Towel?”

“Please, ta,” he says, and Paul leaves him standing there, a hand outstretched to the approaching dog. He can hear John coo at Martha as he grabs a towel, and grins and shakes his head for a moment, partially at the memories and partially at the wonder of it all. 

John Lennon is at his house again. 

It’s been what feels like decades. In reality, he’s not sure how long its been. 

He returns with the promised towel, along with a change of clothes. Paul holds them out towards John, hoping they still wear the same size. Neither of them look much different than they did five, ten years ago. “Don’t want you to catch a cold,” was all he could manage at John’s baffled look.

“Right,” John nodded, wiping off his face and beginning to scrub at his hair. “I’ll just…”

“Toilet’s down the hall, to your right,” Paul says. “You can leave your wet clothes in there.”

“Cheers,” John mumbles, and begins to take hesitant steps into the McCartney residence. His socks leave damp footprints along the wooden floors. Paul makes his way back into the sitting room, back into his chair, and settles back down. He looks at the remainder of his whisky for a few seconds before downing the rest of it. 

John makes his way back out a few minutes later, trailed by an eager Martha. He sits down in the seat across from Paul, evidently uncomfortable in the clothes. They are not his, this is not his. The two of them stare each other down for a few minutes, and Paul almost grins at how quickly he is thrown back into _ Lennon-McCartney_. It feels like they are teens again, eye-to-eye and nose-to-nose, writing love songs. 

_ She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah. _

“What brings you to Scotland?” Paul asks finally, and John breaks away, staring out the window. The rain still falls in torrents outside. 

“I’m not sure if you’ve heard,” John begins, already sounding weary, “but Yoko and I have gotten a divorce.”

“I’m sorry,” Paul says.

“Don’t be. It was a long time coming.” 

Paul nods, unsure of how to respond. He supposes he knows his fair share of ‘long time coming’. 

“By the end, you know, everything seemed off-kilter. She was amazing, and all that, but we didn’t fit, you know? Like the wrong puzzle pieces. ‘We lasted our time,’ she said, when we finalized everything. ‘We lasted our time and now it ends, as it should.’”

“How has Sean taken it?”

“He’s a little upset. He doesn’t get it fully yet, I think. He’s just five. It’s not as though he has a good grasp on the legalities of divorce. He’s just upset his mummy and daddy aren’t both within reach.”

“It’s hard on kids,” Paul says, his chest aching with a tightness that hasn’t really gone away for a year. 

“The hardest part about this whole thing,” he agrees, picking away at his nails. 

Paul nods again, absorbing the information. After a few moments, he says, “But why are you _ here_?”

John looks to him and raises his eyebrows.

“Not that I want you to go!” Paul desperately adds, panic gripping him as he is faced with the idea that John, finally back in his reach after, _ god, how long has it been, four years maybe, _ may soon leave him again. “I’m just...how does that relate to you coming to me?”

John looks down at the floor, looks up at Paul, looks back down again. He gets up and begins to slowly pace around the room, as if filled with too much energy to be completely still. He examines each picture on the mantel: pictures of Paul and the kids mainly, Linda typically on the wrong end of the lens, but there’s one or two of her, as well.

“No hard feelings between you and Linda, then, either? You’re still friends?”

“_ John_.”

“_ Paul_.”

He turns to face Paul for a few moments, stubborn meeting stubborn, and it feels like they are in their late twenties again, and everything is crumbling in Paul’s grasp, and it’s a time he’d really rather not remember.

John sighs and looks away again. “I’ve had this...feeling,” John said.

“Feeling?” Paul asks, raising an eyebrow.

“Look, Paul, never mind all this if you’re going to be like this. I can just go-”

“John!” Paul says, getting up to his feet. He takes a second to calm himself before resuming. “I’m sorry, okay? I wasn’t trying to doubt you. I just didn’t know what you meant.”

John nods.

“Please, tell me. What feeling?”

John takes a deep breath. “It felt...I don’t know. Awful. The past few mornings I’ve woken in a cold sweat, just thinking, ‘You’ve not done enough.’ I felt like everything was unfinished, and if i didn’t wrap them up now...” his voice drops to a shaky whisper. “I would never get to.”

Paul takes a step forward, hand flexed as if ready to reach out to touch, to comfort, at any moment.

“I woke up in a cold sweat this morning, flooded with fear, and I just knew I had to come and see you. I got the first plane ticket they could give me, rented a car, and drove here. I just—Jesus, it felt like everything relied on me coming here and saying, ‘I’m sorry.’” he pauses. “Paul, I’m sorry. For everything I did to you, for all the troubles and hardships since- since you’ve met me.” John looks near tears now. “I’m so sorry.”

“John,” Paul whispers, and finally he reaches forward and pulls him into a hug. It still feels very much like John—broad shoulders and a strong grip, that underlying sweet and sharp smell, although the ashiness seems less strong than it was before. “I’m sorry, too.”

“Well, you ought to be,” John quips weakly, voice half-muffled from Paul’s shirt. “You’re half of the famous duo, McCartney.”

Paul squeezes him tighter. 

They break apart, and look at each other, and it feels like they are sixteen and eighteen respectively again, and they both want what they cannot have. Time and time again, it seems, they both want what they cannot have. It's an unfortunate theme in their long-winded story, twenty-three years in the writing, and Paul wants it changed. He knows, in the way they've always been able to read each other, that John wants it too. The moment hangs heavy in the air, and Paul can hardly breathe. 

John’s hand reaches forward and grabs weakly at Paul’s shirt. “You know,” he whispers hoarsely, eyes filled with fear and desperation, “there’s no reason not to anymore.”

“Pardon?” Paul asks, pathetically pretending he doesn’t know what they’re talking about. John levels him with a glare, and Paul glances down. 

“Think about it. There’s no Linda, no Yoko, no wives...”

“No laws,” Paul adds.

“We don’t have to run anymore,” he continues. “We don’t have to hide anymore.”

“That sounds nice,” Paul breathes, “not having to hide.”

John pulls Paul in by the fistful of shirt he’s still holding until they’re a mere centimetre or two apart. _ I’m not going to hide anymore, _ Paul promises himself, and closes the difference.

It’s not fireworks—it never is. Not realistically. Maybe Paul has too much music flooding through his veins, too much beat in his heartbeat and too many melodies in his mind, but their kiss is a rising crescendo. It is the dramatic swell of an orchestra. It is his hand reaching forward to cup John’s cheek as gently as he can. It is John’s hand relaxing, splaying against Paul’s chest as if to merely feel him, not to keep him from disappearing. It is slow and gentle, and as they pull apart, Paul rests their foreheads together. John’s eyelashes flutter against his cheeks as he opens his eyes. 

“What do you say? Can we stop running?” John asks, and Paul nods vigorously because it’s the one thing he’s desperately wanted for twenty-two years. 

“Yes,” he says, and gives John another kiss.

John laughs at him. “Soft lad.”

“It’s late, John,” Paul whispers. 

“What time is it?”

“It’s 2:49 in the morning,” he says. “Why?”

John stops, breathes for a moment, and Paul runs a thumb along his cheekbone in concern. Finally, John shakes his head. “I don’t know. It just felt...nevermind. Sorry. If you tell me where the guest room is, I can leave you to get re-”

“Guest room?” Paul asks.

“What?”

“If we’re doing this properly, surely we can sleep in the same bed. We don’t have to, you know, _do _ anything—in fact, I’d rather not—but...”

“If you’re sure,” John says, “then I’d rather be with you tonight.”

Paul grabs him by the hand and leads him through the house, relishing in the fact that he can feel John entwining their fingers and their hands fit so well together. 

Like puzzle pieces.

For the first few minutes in bed, they lie arm to arm, unsure of what to do. Paul could certainly say that not only was this the first time he had ever been in such a circumstance, but that he’d never felt as nervous lying next to someone as he feels now since he was a teenager. 

John huffs out a sigh through his nose. “For God's sake,” he says, and buries his face in Paul’s chest. Paul stretches an arm around John’s waist and combs his fingers through John’s hair.

“What you said before,” he whispers after a few moments of silence. “About hardships and troubles. Knowing you being trouble. It’s not. You’re not.”

John scoffs. “After everything,” he says, “why would you think I’m not?”

“Because I know when I get up tomorrow, on December ninth, 1980, I will have the man I’ve loved for years right in my arms,” Paul declares, and even if they haven’t told each other they loved one another yet, and maybe it’s a little soon considering they’ve been together for half an hour, he wants to stop any spiral, any doubts. He’s been in love for twenty-two years. He’s been hiding for twenty-two years.

They aren’t going to run anymore. They aren’t going to hide anymore. 

“There is no hardship in loving John Lennon.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading. A few notes about the story because I'm a nerd about tiny details that have been over-researched for the briefest mention! Some of you may know these, some of you may not, nobody has to read this because it's essentially just me rambling about a tiny bit of Beatle's history. Anyway.  
Onwards!
> 
> A two finger whisky is a term that basically means the amount of whisky in the glass is about two fingers width? I don't drink much but it basically means more than usual. 
> 
> It was four years since they had seen each other last, according to most accounts. They all have bad memories and therefore are Unreliable Narrators but the most well accepted story is that the four of them (John, Yoko, Paul, and Linda) all met up in 1976 sometime. 
> 
> Linda was a photographer, which is why she took more pictures than she was in.
> 
> The title comes from the opening lines In You've Got To Hide Your Love Away (here I stand, head in hand), which I kind of thought was a bit of a fitting song for this work. 
> 
> When John asks Paul what time it is, he replies "2:49 AM." John died at 10:50 pm, Dec 8 in New York, which translates to 2:50 am, Dec 9 in Greenwich Mean Time (GMT, the time zone used in the UK).


End file.
